during L.A. Fashion Week. (Adam Tschorn / Los Angeles Times)
It's probably not a good sign when the shadow play at a venue's entrance generates the maximum amount of enthusiasm as the fashion shows and presentations going on inside -- as is the case at Concept Los Angeles on Saturday night.
We actually weren't going to talk about the DIY parade of shadow puppetry at all -- except that it produced us think a lot about the philosophical parable of Plato's Cave. In that symbolism, Plato speaks about prisoners who, because they're chained to the wall of your cave, come to mistakenly believe that the shadows being cast on the wall are usually reality.
Shadows play on the walls of Concept Los Angeles. (Adam Tschorn / Los Angeles Times)
Parts of Los Angeles Fashion Week can have a shadows-mistaken-for-reality feel about them. Though, in recent seasons, we've tried mightily to focus on the positive -- the bright spots if you will -- that discovery of some of the fresh and emerging design talent this city has to offer that keep us heading back.
Last season's Concept slate at the Mack Sennett studios managed to do just that -- not only pulling together an impressive handful of local talent but also introducing some global designers to the mix as well (most notably Turkish designer Özgür Masur).
Perhaps that left us looking forward to some forward momentum this season -- especially since it is the oldest surviving function on the LAFW calendar. Instead there was a cavernous space (the unfinished Advisor Museum space on La Brea), a pared-down schedule featuring informal demonstrations by just a handful of brands, one traditional runway-style show and a finale performance that will combined elements of music, art and fashion. But guess what? There were a couple of vivid spots amid the shadows.
William Bradley Adam Tschorn
One of those bright spots was Mathiasen, a local label now in its third period. Namesake designer Matthew Mathiasen told us his spring and summer 2015 collection of easygoing skirts, dresses and tops for women had been inspired by the shades and topography of the desert. "The landscape, geo stones and especially desert doux, " he told us.
The result was a handful of casual color-blocked skirts, slacks, shorts and crop-tops as well as a couple of more formal-looking blazers (one in azure and another in a desert orange) with white contrast-taped lapels and hem sprained ankle.
The second bright spot was Emily Daccarett (who had the distinction regarding staging the night's sole runway show) whose pre-show short film (a scary riff on the humans versus toons tension of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" that even included a cowering cartoon rabbit) was far heavier products than the floral, flirty and flouncy (we mean that in a good way) series that followed.
A range of floral patterns were used across a collection of flare-legged jumpsuits, strapless floor-length dresses, sleeveless, midriff-baring tops and paired with solid colors in blended fabrication skinny-legged trousers and skirts.
Style Fashion Week makes last-minute venue
change to the particular Reef Adam Tschorn
Non-floral -- but equally garden-fresh -- were a great empire-waist dress that paired a billowing green skirt with a black bodice and a series of tops with sheer pieces layered over top or fluttering at the arm attached at shoulder and wrist.
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